U.S. Opioid Prescriptions Are Declining

By Cara Murez HealthDay Reporter
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Aug. 11, 2022 (HealthDay News) — The United States has an opioid epidemic, however there’s one brilliant spot within the battle in opposition to it: Prescriptions for these addictive medication have declined for sufferers with personal insurance coverage.

Amid pointers over the previous decade from governments, well being methods and insurers aimed toward lowering opioid prescriptions, earlier research have pointed to a nationwide drop in prescribing charges.

Patients who’re actively receiving most cancers therapies are excluded from these limits.

The new examine included most cancers sufferers in addition to individuals with different persistent ache. It discovered that total prescribing charges nonetheless dropped.

“We discover that from 2012 to 2019 there have been declines in opioid prescribing for people with persistent non-cancer ache and people with most cancers with out corresponding will increase in receipt of non-opioid therapies,” authors Sachini Bandara and Emma McGinty of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, and Dr. Mark Bicket of the University of Michigan, wrote.

The examine was printed Aug. 10 in PLOS ONE .

“These findings spotlight the necessity to higher perceive how declines in prescribing are influencing the administration of ache amongst these affected person populations, significantly because the [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] is at the moment updating opioid prescribing pointers for persistent ache,” the authors mentioned in a journal information launch.

For the examine, the researchers analyzed insurance coverage claims from 100 personal corporations. They checked out sufferers with most cancers and people with different forms of ache, together with low again ache, neuropathic ache, complications or arthritis.

Between 2012 and 2019, the share of people that had been prescribed an opioid for cancer-related ache dropped from 86% to 78.7%, the examine discovered. Those who acquired opioid prescriptions for different forms of ache dropped from 49.7% to 30.5%.

While charges of non-opioid ache treatment had been regular for individuals with non-cancer ache, researchers discovered they rose for most cancers sufferers from 74.4% to 78.8%.

For those that nonetheless acquired opioids, fewer individuals acquired extraordinarily excessive doses or greater than a one-week provide, the researchers reported.

They mentioned extra examine is required to find out how the revised pointers influenced ache administration in each teams.

More data

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has extra on the opioid epidemic.

SOURCE: PLOS ONE, information launch, Aug. 10, 2022